A press release was issued by PETA today to promote a new book called The Animal Activist’s Handbook. Co-written by welfarists Vegan Outreach’s Matt Ball and PETA Vice-President Bruce Friedrich, as well as endorsed by both welfarists Peter Singer and Matthew Scully? Buyer beware!

My favourite bit from the press release: “[Friedrich] argues against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items”. Uh, so what? Don’t eat? Pretend you’re not vegan? So now PETA is saying that if I adhere to an ethical framework that permeates every aspect of my life, including what I eat, that it’s “impolite” and somehow harmful to the animal rights cause to find out if what’s offered on a menu is suitable for me to eat? I’ll guess that they’d probably OK my doing so if I had a life-threatening food allergy, so why should merely asking be portrayed as socially unacceptable if you’re doing it for ethical reasons? Why seek to shame people for merely informing themselves?